Multi-geography CDO — Media & Entertainment · anchored Canada

Position overview

Gladwin International Leadership Advisors is representing a confidential organisation in Media, Entertainment & Sports on a senior CDO leadership mandate anchored in Canada. The remit explicitly spans Middle East, Singapore, Malaysia.

This is a multi-geography leadership role requiring orchestration across time zones, matrix stakeholders, and often dual-reporting into global and regional lines.

The mandate fits a leader comfortable owning the narrative externally while upgrading how decisions are made internally.

Context you will inherit

• Market & sector: Monetisation in a low-ARPU market — India's media companies must find creative ways to generate revenue from users who resist paying for content, requiring innovative commercial leadership
• Geographic spine: Primary hub Canada with explicit corridor responsibility across Middle East, Singapore, Malaysia.
• Organisation stage: Growth agenda collides with legacy cost base; productivity and automation are board-level topics, not staff functions.
• Stakeholders: Owners may include PE operating partners, a promoter family office, or public-market investors — each with different tempo and KPIs.
• Secondary lens: Sports commercialisation — IPL and emerging sports leagues need professional commercial, marketing, and operations leaders who can build sports businesses to global standards

The mandate (12–24 month arc)

1. Executive dashboards: Replace vanity metrics with a tight set of KPIs the CEO and CFO trust.
2. Customer data: Unify identity and consent where fragmentation hurts personalisation or compliance.
3. Operational analytics: Use data to improve unit economics in operations — yield, utilisation, leakage.
4. Partnership with IT: Clarify split between CDO-owned capabilities and CIO-owned platforms.
5. Regulatory reporting: Where applicable, reduce manual reconciliation through better lineage and controls.
6. Talent: Hire leaders who can translate statistical insight into executive decisions — not only build models.

Responsibilities (representative)

• Reduce regulatory and audit pain on data lineage, privacy, and retention.
• Monetise or operationalise data assets where ethically and legally sound.
• Hire and retain data science and engineering talent in competitive markets.
• Align metrics definitions across finance, operations, and commercial teams.
• Lead MDM and reference data programmes where fragmentation blocks decisions.

Leadership profile

• Education: Strong undergraduate grounding; MBA / advanced degree / professional qualification common at this level.
• Trusted metrics: Examples where data changed capital or operating decisions in Media, Entertainment & Sports.
• Judgment: High signal-to-noise under pressure; ethical clarity; willingness to halt initiatives that break risk appetite.
• Communication: Executive presence in English; additional languages valued where market-relevant.
• Geographic muscle: Comfort operating from Canada with regular engagement across Middle East, Singapore.

Team & culture

Inclusion and psychological safety are not separate programmes — they are prerequisites for honest debate on strategy and risk. Model curiosity, direct feedback, and consequences for conduct lapses.

Success measures (examples)

• Growth quality: Mix of recurring revenue, new logos, and cross-sell — not volume for its own sake.
• Productivity: Unit cost, automation savings, or throughput improvements with audited baselines.
• Customer: NPS / CSAT where tracked; contract renewals; reference-ability in strategic accounts.
• Franchise: Clean compliance record; reputation stability in industry and government forums.

First 90 days (orientation arc)

• Days 1–30: Listening tour — customers, regulators (as appropriate), top team 1:1s, and unfiltered view of numbers; pause major reorganisation.
• Days 30–60: Publish a short memo on priorities, non-goals, and decision rights; align executive committee on three enterprise bets.
• Days 60–90: Lock operating cadence; fill or upgrade one to two critical seats; deliver one visible win (customer, cost, or culture).
• Commission a pragmatic view of data, cyber, and automation posture; sponsor one bounded pilot with ROI hypothesis.
• Establish escalation discipline with matrix partners — fewer meetings, clearer decision logs.
• Clarify RACI for cross-border deals, staffing, and pricing exceptions.

Stakeholder map (illustrative)

• Internal: CEO or regional president, CFO, risk / legal, CHRO, CIO or CDO, business GMs, internal audit.
• External: Strategic accounts, channel partners, industry associations, regulators (where material).
• Owners: PE operating partners, promoter office, or public investors — pace and clarity matter as much as vision.

Travel & mobility

Travel weighted to priority markets and quarterly global or regional forums; flexibility for crisis windows.

Compensation

Market-aligned CDO remuneration in Media, Entertainment & Sports with performance linkage; sign-on and relocation considered for exceptional fits.

Application status

This mandate is no longer accepting new applications. The search progressed through Q4 2025 and closed for submissions in February 2026. We retain this posting for transparency on the type of leadership work we carry in Media, Entertainment & Sports and Canada. For similar active mandates, browse open roles or submit a general profile through executive search inquiry.

Reference: media-entertainment · CDO · Canada · Gladwin International Leadership Advisors